MOST IMPORTANT IN SALES
ABC - Always Be Closing
Don’t just get them into your educational funnel (very important but you’re selling something) purpose a deal, let them invest or get them (centralised, closed source organisation) to sign a collaboration in some sort. Like @filip says, your knowledge is worth something! So the sooner you can close a deal the better! (it’s a sales lesson, not a lesson on integrity)
(obviously not talking about within a corporation ,there you just need to set up “the whole” idea and pitch it to the people who are in the position and can decide about that idea, if they don’t even wanna think or talk about it… well… think twice, you might be in the wrong company)
The organization I work within is a business resource centre that has municipalities as the stakeholders and we deal with business loans that are funded by the federal government of Canada (also offer coaching and training services). There are 27 offices within my province, though each office has individual practices. This course initially made me start to think differently about the database program we use and that infrastructure. I absolutely believe this would be an ideal environment for conversion to blockchain technology, though I anticipate there would be too much red-tape to actually make any changes occur. Personally, my sights are set on an entrepreneurial venture encouraging blockchain projects, assisting with architecture of projects. Programming is not in my wheel-house.
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My business partner is quickly becoming a corporate head at a supply chain company and tells me that they need IBM Cloud features but NOT Blockchain. What I am realizing that when it comes to selling blockchain internally, it is about meticulously breaking down the pain points of your company. Then you do bring up cryptocurrency like Filip said to peak interest. The best way is slowly integrate IBM Blockchain so that they can get efficiency without having to go fully in deep with a slow transition that leads to a massive switch to cryptocurrency. @filip, you and Ivan made this course in 2018 and look at the evolution of cryptocurrencies now in 2021. Ethereum is mooning, multiple billionaires have integrated and even put all of their reserves in Bitcoin (Michael Saylor) so it starts by planting the IBM seed and then watering it into Ethereum Blockchain.
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I’m just a young college student and never had any experience in sales (except for eBay). The lecture helped me understand the process of sales, and by reading this community forum, I was able to hear many people’s opinions and experiences! Hopefully in the near future, I will be able to build my own dApp and sale it to companies.
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To be able to sell or pitch an idea revolving around blockchain to other businesses you should have a damn good idea to what the business is about. I believe you have to have either a partner or have in depth knowledge of a sector yourself if you want to get past the first ‘nice blockchain talk’-layer.
My main concern would be writing a proposal/budget for a ‘new technology’ in a sector that is also new to you. What is the baseline budget scope for blockchain projects? 100k in EUR or USD? 1 Million? 10?
Blockchain dev is expensive, but how expensive? And how would that break down? What’s needed for a Proof of Concept in its earliest stage, say without fancy front-end designs?
I believe having a grasp on the financial aspects should be fundamental for any pitch and business owner. Your ideas can be off, blockchain may not be the right fit, but also if there’s no budget or not enough budget it doesn’t make sense to try and start selling anyways.
As an entrepreneur in the startup community things will work differently. You can start from zero and an idea. Bootstrap it with a few people to a proof of concept then pitch to anyone and everyone sharing your story looking for investment. Then still you have to get an idea as to what the cost would be and when an investor can expect some returns.
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An update should be listed as 2018 was a long time ago (now 2021) Institutions and people are on board but seem to ump everything crypto together - Bitcoin (Limited Number & cannot be hacked) and Ethereum (Unlimited Amount & has been hacked) and Dodgecoin etc. seemed to be lumped together as if they are blockchain equals.
What is to prevent Ethereum …etc from being adopted and then manipulated like the USD ($ U.S. Dollar) What happens during a severe downturn?
Blockchain Solution Sales may be easier when the expense is reduced and the application can be utilized by small / mom & pop type businesses. (Kinda like Quick-books helped with accounting)
Watch Riot Blockchain, Inc. (RIOT) and Coinbase Global Inc. (COIN) as a barometer along with Bitcoin to answer some of these questions over the next six months. Arrested development may occur when the crash / “Winter Cycle” hits after the present day Euphoria.
LMK what you guys think - I am new to this space but concerned with the abundant market optimism.
rjr
2021-05-07T04:00:00Z
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thanks for sharing, After BTC free fall and crypto maekets this week the whale factor becomes a highlight for institutional buy in to crypto.
so my thought sort of shift from the currency highlight to Blockchain use case as the key factor driving efficiency etc, especially now in Covid lockdowns. what are companies looking for and how can i help through blockchain solutions. just some random thoughts. thanks
kenya
may 2021
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Hi Filip,
Looking at the Project Plan, wouldn’t you want to look at the Deliverables before the possible Solutions? I.e. establish what the solution needs to deliver before drafting what a solution could be and establishing if the deliverables are met. I guess in this instance one would be looking at the deliverables as a requirements list…?
Actually, scrap that. Re-reading the list, that is the purpose of the Objectives. I’ve written this, so I’ll post it lol
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I’m of the opinion that the currency element is possibly just as important, if not more important as the blockchain during the current economic crisis. Crypto currencies create a virtuous cycle of engagement between crypto companies and their customers. Growing that customer base also further increases the value of crypto assets held by your existing customers. Both sides of the transaction benefit from quality services. Blockchain can improve business efficiencies, but it doesn’t necessary promote a money multiplier effect. In my opinion, anyway 
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My main piece of advice here would be to formulate how you believe blockchain could be positioned very clearly. Clear enough so that the potential and benefits could be explained to a 5 year old.
I’ve PM’s the build of 2 recruitment platforms and I wanted to include blockchain and crypto currencies into the product. I won’t divulge how exactly, as I still think it’s something I’ll revisit in the not too distant future. My chairman and investors are old school and they only really knew about the FUD and “get rich” element of Bitcoin. They had a negative disposition towards the industry. It was like trying to convince someone smoking was good for you… i.e. they had hard formed opinions on the technology, without education. They lost parts of their workforce to crypto and had become salty towards. No other way to describe it.
I’m doing this course to improve my own fundamental understanding to move further into the sector, most likely away from my current investors. Which is a shame. On a personal level, I really like this guys, they’ve got bags of money and a network formed over decades. They also developed ground breaking tech back in the day that’s still used today… but I sold the crypto concept poorly because I was under-prepared. As in, I brought it up in a conversation and it was aggressively shot down.
So, I would recommend, IF your trying to drive a change and speaking to a decision maker, make sure you allocate a meeting for this specific discussion. It could be a short brief at first. Make sure you are prepared with clear use cases and benefits that makes the proposal compelling enough for serious further thought and discussion. No matter how “obvious” you think the use case is. Otherwise, your ideas could fall victim to a bad first impression, of which you only get one chance to make…
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I work for a commercial real-estate company, with properties all over the US. The owner of the company is a the richest self made Billionaire in the US. I had a quick conversation with the COO of the company and feels Blockchain could be big someday but fears regulation with Bitcoin. I am anxious to learn how a commercial real-estate company can use Blockchain. Anyone have experience or success stories in related field or ideas?
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I’m situation in Japan and when I bring up blockchain, both public and private ones, my Japanese coworkers just associate it with dangerous volatile crypto asset and chalk it up to BTC.
Then again, I believe there are more forward-thinking companies lately, hence why there are blockchain expo for japanese businesses happening once every season:
https://www.bc-expo.jp/en-gb/about.html
I am aware that there is a lot of new businesses happening in Tokyo surrounding blockchain technology, especially since it isn’t easy for programmers or business men to learn about blockchain in Japanese.
There is ample opportunity to tap into the Japanese market so long as you have somebody local to facilitate the work and projects that the Japanese clients require. I think the expo aforementioned above as well as any accounting firm, new or old, are all good starting points.
Then you have the gaming companies. It’s just a matter of time until they need experience staff for NFT utilization.
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I have not started any blockchain project but I have started big projects in the past. I would say that it is easier to start a project when you allready have a team and a budget. You need to create a simple buisness case that can be understood by someone who does not have prior knowledge about blockchain and present it both to your colleuges but also to the management of the company. Be very clear about what the risks are and of course what value it could bring to the company. The overall time frame and resources required.
It also helps if you can show that it fits with the overall planning for the near future.
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Thanks for sharing! Some really good advise.
@filip Sales overview video is in the wrong section. It’s in the Testing & QA section.
Reviewing this course first time since Nov 2018. Amazing job with the growth of Academy.
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thank you for letting us know, we will fix it asap! 
Carlos Z
I agree with Chris about blockchain projects. It’s not really difficult to start when you’re confident and know what your project is made for. Being very clear about the risks is what everyone needs for evolving in the blockchain. Another important part is to boost your salesforce and feedback with clients in general. I know some “sellers” who were too arrogant towards their customers, and their projects eventually failed. Well, it was expected with such an attitude. Sometimes is also important to use such soft as a salesforce email connector or sales signals. It helps to manage blockchain startup from the start without any additional risks.
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I work at a company builder / venture builder, but we have not yet had any actual blockchain related projects, the thing is, I maybe just upselled it. I found out that we are planning to do a project in regards to DeFi and when I heard it immediately joined in. We came up with a number of projects, generated more details in regards to the most promising one that fit into our portfolio and even pitched the idea (successfully) in Switzerland to a couple of investors. I think my situation is quite different from people in more rigid corporate-like companies which will have a lower openness to such innovative moves.
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A bit of negativity about the functionality with blockchain for many businesses. You’ve just got to spark the fire with the right person. But to my question, did IBM and Walmart and Mersk actually get there supply chains on blockchain operational? Youtube vids are +2 years old.
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